Western Film Research Articles

ЖУРНАЛ «СОВЕТСКИЙ ЭКРАН» В ЭПОХУ «ПЕРЕСТРОЙКИ»

The authors based on content analysis (in the context of historical, socio-cultural and political situation, etc.) of the texts published in the "thaw" period of the "Soviet Screen" magazine (1986-1991). ), the authors concluded that the materials on the subject of Western cinema at this stage can be divided into the following genres: ideologized articles emphasizing criticism of bourgeois cinema and its harmful influence on the audience (1986-1987); articles on the history of Western cinema; biographies and creative portraits of Western actors and directors; interviews with Western filmmakers; reviews of Western films; articles on international film festivals and foreign film weeks in the USSR; reviews of the current repertoire of Western national cinemas.

Proibito di Mario Monicelli tratto da La madre di Grazia Deledda come esempio di “western deleddiano”

In the 1950s, films inspired by the work of Grazia Deledda and, at the same time, by the western genre appeared. Called ‘the Deleddian westerns,’ they typically featured the conquest of a wild environment, submission to the laws of nature, the primacy of local unwritten customary laws over the official law of the state (bound up with the frequent motif of justice), and stories of outlaws from the early 20th century. In the article, we analyse Mario Monicelli’s film Proibito (1954; Forbidden), inspired by Deledda’s novel La madre (1919; The Mother). Thematising justice, Proibito is a story of bandits and a priest who must intervene for the sake of peace and the good of the community. The film’s plot transports viewers to the non-existent Sardinian Far West and goes beyond the concerns of Deledda’s novel. Though coming closer to American cinema and the western film model of the time, Forbidden went down in the history of Sardinian cinema for its realistic and non-invasive portrayals of Sardinia’s iconic symbols, such as nuraghes, village churches, costumes, and local festivals. In this article, we compare the novel and the film to conclude that the two substantially differ in their renderings of the character of the mother and her relationship with her son, his inner conflict, religion, and superstition. All these aspects are absent or marginalised in the film.

A Postmodern Twist to the Western Film Tradition in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs by The Coen Brothers

Although the Coen brothers had already made films related to the Western genre, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) is a different venture, since they wrote the script of this anthology movie comprising six stories themselves. Besides delving into some of the themes that they have dealt with in their filmography–mortality, ethics, violence, justice, etc.–they also provide the film with a number of postmodern twists that hint at an effort to work through some of the problems posed by the mythology of the American West. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs contains the use of intertextuality across various art forms, a parodic treatment, and the inclusion of unusual perspectives that are all typical of postmodern aesthetics and politics of representation.

REPRESENTATION OF THE MESSAGE OF PEACE IN THE FILM KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (2005)

There were efforts to send a message of peace seem necessary to eliminate all kinds of terrorist stereotypes against Muslims. Many western films were produced to convey the message of peace were made with many attempts. One of these is Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven (2005), set during the Crusades in the late 12th century as a historical piece from the Battle of Jerusalem. This study focused on the character structure of the film Kingdom of Heaven in such a way that the message of peace is conveyed in the film. The study used a qualitative approach combined with the descriptive analysis approach of Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotic theory, called the trichotomy of sign meaning. Data collection techniques using observation, identification and documentation for the film Kingdom of Heaven. The results showed that the image of the message of peace expressed in the film was a war in the name of religion and does not seem to defend a particular religion, but is shaped by different interests. In conclusion, the film determined that not all westerners are good and not all Muslims are bad. Keywords: kingdom of heaven, signs messages of peace, Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotic theory

«Бриллиантовая рука» Леонида Гайдая: окаянные мысли за завесой юмора

The article deals with the genre features of L.I. Gaidai “The Diamond Arm”. It is noted that in this fi lm, in addition to a satirical denunciation of various shortcomings of Soviet reality, L.I. Gaidai gives a parody on numerous foreign and domestic fi lms, primarily fi lms about James Bond, foreign parodies of Bond and other spies, detective and crime comedies and individual comedy roles. The connection in the fi lm of numerous echoes with parodied prototypes required the director to turn to a special genre – the mockumentary fi lm, which began to actively develop in those years in Western cinema. Perhaps Gaidai’s “The Diamond Arm” turned out to be the fi rst domestic example of this genre. It is based on the technique of bricolage, which is expressed in a special combination of many borrowed plot situations and actors’ characters. The result is a believable story with easily recognizable intrigues and plot moves, made in the manner of realistic fi lming, without exact quoting of material borrowed from other fi lms, but with a recognizable reliance on it. Thanks to the layering of parodied plot details embedded in everyday situations that were widespread in the Soviet reality of those years, the director creates a story that is outwardly simple and understandable to the general public, unfolding in the frame. Thus, Gaidai managed to form a script, consisting entirely of parodied borrowings. The director offers not only to laugh at the so-called ‘individual shortcomings’, but also draws attention to conceptual criticism of the vulnerable aspects of the Soviet mass consciousness of the 1960s – over the main value priorities of the many-sided domestic bourgeoisie, focused on the life for ‘personal benefi t’. Accordingly, he criticizes precisely this ideal of false self-assertion, both by direct satirical denunciations of the negative aspects of Soviet reality, and by parodying models of acquisitiveness and personal comfort borrowed from the West, to which Soviet seekers of an easy life were committed.

“New Ballet Criticism” (1993–2003) About “Soviet” Ballet: Forms of Cultural Recycling

In post-Soviet Russia ballet criticism, similar to opera criticism, has an almost 30-year-old history, but the period perceived as the brightest and most significant is the first period, spanning the 1990s and the early part of the first decade of the 21st century. For this New Ballet Criticism (as it has been labelled by Vadim Gaevsky), as a part of New Russian Music Criticism (as defined by Olga Manulkina and Pavel Gershenzon), a number of features have become normative: provocative styles and titles, a demythologization of works and of choreographers, the use of comparisons with mass culture in narratives, and ironic subtext. Similar to opera, political discourse has become important in ballet receptions of that time. Reviews of Soviet-era ballet productions (as well as other types of performance) often refer to the main elements of Soviet mass art — Soviet films, as well as symbols of the totalitarian culture, such as sculpture and ideological materials. The styles and headlines exploit numerous Sovietisms that are familiar and recognizable by the audience. Just like in opera reviews, the recent “Soviet” element in ballet receptions is synthesized with Soviet mass culture and fashionable trends in the country via the cult of Western cinema and the influence of domestic and foreign literary, scholarly and epistolary texts. But unlike opera criticism, ballet narratives clearly record the diversity of genres of “Soviet” ballet (ranking Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich among them); ballets since 1961 have been interpreted as a transformation of the “Soviet” element under the influence of George Balanchine’s choreography; the concept of “Soviet choreography” also implies the unreachable, for example, in the embodiment of heroic moods and the creation of mass scenes. Four forms of cultural recycling in ballet receptions are identified: recycling, recycling à la ballet, double recycling and quasi-recycling.

Spiritual Wonderings: A Study of Phantasmagoria in Early Chinese Cinema

Abstract Phantasmagoria (幻景 huanjing) is a term commonly seen in historical materials on early Chinese cinema. In this thesis, “Phantasmagoria” is taken as the localization of Western cinema tricks in early China. According to sources, “phantasmagoria” is valuable and rich in content, although it has no clear definition. This thesis seeks to define “phantasmagoria” and through a comparison of Chinese and Western cinema investigate which Western cinema tricks were appropriated and eventually labelled phantasmagoria. This article takes phantasmagoria to be a Chinese term, the meaning and application of which carry the traditional cultural ideas behind the localization of cinema tricks.

The Influence of Film Marketing Strategy on the Film Box Office

The purpose of this study is to have a more in-depth study and discussion on marketing and film marketing market, so as to provide more thinking and suggestions for China's future film marketing strategies, promote the development of Chinese film marketing and make Chinese films better go to the world. This paper used the analysis of the box office data to compare the box office differences between Chinese films and foreign films (China and the United States, China, and Western films) and analyze the influence of different groups on the box office of Chinese films. From the research conclusion: the selection of material can greatly affect the movie box office. Through the analysis of the performances of patriotic films and science fiction films in domestic and foreign markets, it’s can see that patriotic films are more dominant in China, and the box office of science fiction films is also growing rapidly in recent years. Through the analysis of different movie publicity strategies, it can be concluded that the star effect has both positive and negative effects. It can better guarantee the support rate of fans for movie stars, but in some movies, it also damages the attraction of the movie to the general audience to a certain extent. Through the study of word-of-mouth marketing, this paper found that the influence of word-of-mouth marketing is decreasing because of the increasing number of false word-of-mouth publicity and false comments.

Taking Disneys Mulan as an Example: An Analysis of the Characterization of Western Films from the Perspective of Orientalism -- From the Perspective of Spivaks Subordinate Study Theory

This study aims to explore the Western discrimination against Eastern women and the Western stereotype of the East reflected in Hua Mulan through an analysis of the characterization of the characters in Hua Mulan, a comparison of the filming techniques and scenes between the film version and the live-action version of Hua Mulan, and a discussion of the dressing of Hua Mulan. This article uses the method of comparative film analysis, the theoretical research of Spiarts subordinates, and the theory of Orientalism to analyze and explain the means of expression of the characters in Mulan and the defects of feminism embodied in it. Even with the awakening of feminism in the world, there is still a chain of contempt between women in the East and the West called being ignored, which is reflected in Hua Mulan. Behind the discrimination against Eastern women in the West is the problem of feminism itself. With the rapid development of technology, feminism is also developing rapidly. In the pursuit of equality, feminism should maintain an equal attitude towards women in the East and the West, seeking common ground while maintaining differences equally.

Atsakomybė ir etika sinchroniškai verčiant filmus

In this article I raise two questions concerning ethics: Was it ethical to interpret in the way that was done in academic film clubs in Soviet Estonia, where Western films that were banned from public screenings in cinemas were simultaneously interpreted in the 1970s and 1980s, and is it ethical to respond to those interpreters’ best efforts in the way the audience responded to my presentation fifty years later? The non-professional interpreting practice in question violates contemporary codes of ethics (accuracy, impartiality, etc.) and goes against current interpreting techniques (condensation, omission, etc.). The interpreters applied creative cross-cultural communication, but was this ethical? This practice ensured accessibility to renowned works of cinematography as without interpretation the screening of those films in the original version might have not taken place. The outcome was shaped by the implicit expectations of the viewers. In 2022, the response to my presentation on this type of film interpreting at a conference was hilarious.

The White Lotus TV Series Season 2: Deconstructing Italians Stereotypes

Modern mass media serve as both a "magic window" into the world and a "door" to new ideas. It is important to look at how the steady growth of media affects the way racial and cultural stereotypes are pushed forward. Stereotypes themselves can influence how people view facts and social events and one of many examples of stereotypes is Italian stereotypes. This study analyzes HBO's popular series, The White Lotus season two, employing Fairclough's model critical discourse analysis to deconstruct Italian stereotypes through the characters' portrayals. This study also examines the sociocultural aspect and physical appearances of the Italian characters portrayed by American television. The findings of this study show the physical portrayal of Italians mostly they have the same features and are known for their fashion sense and attention to appearance. Moreover, Italian characters are portrayed with speak loudly and having the urge to cause some disturbance. The last stereotype is quite expected but debatable, which is the portrayal of Italians being middle-class workers and mafia. This stereotype had some audience feeling disappointed and others pleased enough. Western films' mafia stereotypes could affect how people learn about the culture, and think all Italians are dangerous, poor, and do drugs. Mafias exist and should not define Italian identity, especially in mainstream media.

From folklore to horror: The Medium as a case for Thai folk horror

While folk horror has never been identified as exclusive to western cinema, most studies of the topic have so far been strongly aligned with western world-views, philosophies and methodologies. This makes it difficult to apply their findings to films made in non-Christian non-western countries, such as Thailand. This article discusses Banjong Pisanthanakun’s film Rang Song (The Medium) (2021) as a case in point to demonstrate how folk horror operates as a mode in Thai cinema. Building on the existing studies and modifying the current definitions of folk horror to apply them to the Thai cultural context, the article argues that Thai folk horror narratives are steeped in representations of the urban–rural divide that pit metropolitan Bangkok against low-income provinces (in particular, the northeastern region of Isan) and reflect on cultural tensions related to ethnicity and class.

Arctic cinema: from horror through dramas and thrillers To Action movies and fiction (Part I)

The article considers a number of genres of Arctic films in the world cinema. Among them, some of the most common are horror films (horror), thrillers (part I), dramas, science fiction and action films (part II). The socio-political climate of the times determined the evolution of genres and influenced their semantic content and structure. Their formation and production flow has a calendar milestone. In the second half of the twentieth century, after the end of the Great Patriotic War, a cold war began between two blocs of states with different socio-economic systems led by the USSR and the USA. It was she who strengthened the militaristic role of the Arctic not only in the military-industrial sphere, but also in the cinematographic one. Hollywood, as part of the political and ideological machine of the United States, immediately responded with its films. The screen was politicized in the general range of Cold War sentiments. Conducting atomic tests, the appearance of the atomic bomb in the USA in 1945 and in the USSR in 1949, “flying saucers” from space, noted in 1947, brought to life horror films, science fiction and drama. The heroes of the films were monsters that descended to earth from outer space or rose from the depths of the ocean, all kinds of mechanical and biological monsters awakened by nuclear tests. In parallel, western cinema constructed models of anti-Soviet orientation. The purpose of the films was to amuse and captivate the viewer into an illusory world and at the same time, to shock, amaze, terrify and excite him with scientific or pseudoscientific fiction. This goal remains the main one for most fantastic horror and thrillers. Some of them preached violence, cruelty, conflict, degradation of the human personality. Aggressiveness, programmed in the person himself, is increasingly, manifested in Arctic thrillers and action film.

Logan (2017) and the lost object of masculinity, or the trouble with Shane

James film, Logan, offers up a future world in which the X-Men are no more. All that remains are a few old and ravaged mutants, including Logan and Xavier whose worsening dementia is having a catastrophic impact on his psychic abilities that is becoming increasingly dangerous for others. Both of these former X-Men become roped into assisting a group of synthetic mutant children as they run from those who attempt to subdue and destroy them. Principal among these children is X-23, Laura, who has been created from Logan’s DNA. By staging this potential daughter along with a suggested queerness of the other mutant children the film seemingly offers up a critique of patriarchal ideologies often at the heart of the superhero genre. However, this article is concerned with the way the film intertextually references the 1953 Western film Shane, which creates an ambivalence in Logan’s meaning. The presence of Shane, the article argues, disturbs the surface gender critical storyline offering up instead the sense of a redemptive heroic masculinity that wrangles patriarchal ideology in through the backdoor.

Comparison of High and Low Context Differences between China and the West

Different cultural backgrounds are important factors that affect cross-cultural communication and activities, and understanding cultural differences is crucial for promoting cross-cultural communication and activities. As English majors, it is necessary for us to clarify the differences in context between China and the West from different perspectives. Anthropologist Hall divides culture into high context and low context. It is generally believed that China is a typical high context cultural country, and the way of expression often depends on the background and context, while the West is a typical low context culture, and the way of expression mainly depends on language. This article mainly compares the emotional expressions of male and female protagonists, advertising slogans, poetry, and songs in Chinese and Western films and television, aiming to explore the cultural factors reflected in different contexts of high and low context between China and the West, in order to deepen our understanding of Western countries and promote cross-cultural communication.

The cultural politics of race in Chinese cinema: Nationalism and the changing representation of whiteness in Big Shot’s Funeral and Crazy Alien

Research on whiteness in Western cinema has effectively revealed how cinematic representation contributes to formulating, perpetuating, normalizing, and contesting white superiority in Western cultural discourses. However, little research considers how Chinese cinema imagines and negotiates whiteness. Using the visual-textual analysis method, this article examines the representations of white identities in Big Shot’s Funeral (2001, dir. Feng Xiaogang) and Crazy Alien (2019, dir. Ning Hao). These are two well-received post-socialist Chinese dark comedy films depicting encounters between Chinese people and Westerners in contemporary China. Approaching racial identity as a form of social positioning, I analyze how various meanings are ascribed to white identities in the films, and how these meanings articulate Chineseness and Chinese nationalist sentiments. I show that white superiority is simultaneously reinforced and contested in the two films. While doing so, I will also highlight Western cultural theories’ lack of analytical power in explaining how white superiority in cultural discourse transforms across different geographical locations.

Negotiating body, sex, and self-fashioning in Fújì music

A growing body of literature interrogating the voluptuous rendering of human sexuality in popular culture has focused on sex scripting in Western films and the commodification of women and their representations in popular media. However, exploration of how linguistic metaphors and innuendoes are deployed to affirm or contest expressions of desires that are sacred, sensitive, or taboo in Fuji music has received little scholarly attention. Of what significance is contesting social structure on sexuality to Fuji as a Nigerian popular musical genre? This empirical study explores this question while drawing on an ethnographic and interpretive literary analysis. Drawing from Hakim’s notion of ‘erotic capital’, the analyses and discussion operationalize the sexual scripting framework, Black feminist thought, and African/Black revolutionary art. I argue that sexual narratives and connotations in Fuji performance are often generated as powerful resources to contest sexual sensitivity and push back on silence on sexuality, negotiate and solicit artistic identity, and exact influence on public conversations on sexuality. By and large, this article affirms the engagement of sensual lyrical content as constitutive of revolutionary art and a social transformative site in which the body is negotiated as a catalyst for sexonomics in the contemporary ‘ear-tearing pant-and-bra’ musical evocations.

Ad hoc Screen Translation in Soviet Estonian Film Clubs

In Soviet Estonian official cinemas, foreign films were always dubbed into Russian with Estonian subtitles. Founded at the end of the Thaw, film clubs and other semi-official screening locations became popular as part of the alternative scene and unauthorised discourse. They screened uncensored original Western European and Hollywood films and thus the works of forbidden film directors and cinema movements from the West were introduced to a limited audience of film enthusiasts. Compared to other Soviet Socialist Republics, Estonia was in a privileged geographical and linguistic position to be able to access the films of the West via Finland. Film clubs looked beyond the Iron Curtain and opened up a cultural dialogue between the West and Soviet Estonia. This article analyses the repertoire of foreign films and different translation modes, social relations and the agency of the interpreters, and it looks at their interpretative act from theoretical perspectives discussed by Juri Lotman and Naoki Sakai. Lay Summary: In the era of Soviet Estonia, where foreign films were typically re-edited and dubbed into Russian, film clubs emerged as underground screening locations that offered uncensored original Western European and Hollywood films. These clubs played a crucial role in introducing the works of forbidden film directors and cinematic movements from the West to a limited audience of film enthusiasts. Soviet Estonia stood out in three significant aspects: 1) it was the only SSR to subtitle all films in the official cinema into Estonian; 2) it had a vibrant film club culture in universities with diverse repertoires from Finland, and all films had a live translation into Estonian, 3) and it had access to Finnish television broadcasting Western movies that were otherwise not shown in the Soviet Union (Estonian and Finnish are closely related languages that share many semantic and grammatical structures). Compared to other Soviet Socialist Republics, Estonia had the advantage of its geographical and linguistic position, facilitating a socio-cultural dialogue with the West. The various translation methods employed, often conducted on an ad hoc basis, social dynamics, and the role of interpreters in the film clubs, played a transformative role in dismantling the barriers of the Iron Curtain. Interpreters, by navigating the boundaries between the original films and their translations, significantly influenced the understanding of Western cinema and culture in Soviet Estonia.

The Representation of East Asian Music in Silent Film Accompaniment Scores

The Representation of East Asian Music in Silent Film Accompaniment Scores

A Comparative Analysis of “Sense of Music” and “Sense of Guilt” in Chinese and Western Films

The differences between Chinese and Western cultures result in systematic differences in the forms and styles of film art, the deep psychological patterns of a culture are more or less influenced by the society and ideology that gave birth to them. However, due to the natural environment, living conditions, especially the different forms of economic production and activities, people from different religious beliefs, different spiritual cores, different cultural development models. As a form of cultural presentation, Chinese and Western films show different ways of dealing with the same type of events, as well as different narrative philosophies. This paper analyzes the “Music culture” and “Guilt culture” in the image narrative strategy of Chinese and foreign films on this subject, to explain the source of the cultural differences.